World Families Forums - Pitts Genealogy

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dpitts,Thanks for posting your pedigree. I looked at your ggggrandfather's deathcertificate. A public tree on Ancestry.com shows Phoebe J. Van Buren (1835-1900) to have been his spouse and shows an Ervin W. Pitts (1868-1908) as a child. Ervindied Sept 5, 1908 in Livingston County Michigan

Mary Jane Pitts Wright - Was told by a family member that she was born a Pitts and gave all her children her maiden name. We have not been able to prove or disprove this. We have traced her in the 1900 Census, widowed, and going by Mary Pitts. 1910 - 1940 Census' have her as Mary Wright. The 1910 Census says she had been married about 3 years making her marriage to Manuel Wright around 1907. We have not been able to find her prior to the 1900 Census.

This 1900 Census is the last verified record we have of Mary. We have found a few other Mary Pitts' from the area but have not been able to verify any of them is who we are looking for.

Note: In the 1910-1930 Census' Mary is married to who we believe is the same person, although he is called Mansel, Maurel, and Manuel. For the purpose of this message I will be referring to him as Manual, as I tend to believe that was his name, given my examination of the original Census records. We have found no marriage record for Mary Jane Pitts and Manuel Wright, but we did find one for Mary Jane Pitts and Maxwell Wright in 1909 in Lincoln County, MS. The problem is, we have no record of Mary ever living in Lincoln County.

In 1910 Mary is living in Covington County, MS next to her son Jeff (My great grandfather) Jeff is going by Jeff Dickens for some reason. We know he was a moonshiner so he may have been hiding from the law. But this is just speculation. Jeff had told my grandfather that his father was a man named Charlie Dickens; but this has not been proven. In this Census Willie is living with Jeff and also listed as Willie Dickens. Only the youngest, Homer is still living at home and he is listed as Homer Wright. Alice has married John W Creel and living in Jones County, MS, and we do not know what happened to Dessie (looks like Lillie to me on Census).

In 1920 Jeff has moved to Copiah County in Wesson, MS and now going by Jeff Pitts. He was killed 9/23/1926 on his property in Wesson, MS while running his still. He was shot in the leg by a prohibition officer and bled to death before they got him to the hospital. We have his death certificate but it says, “father unknown.” Mary has moved next to her daughter Alice in Ovett, MS in Jones County. Homer and Willie have both moved on. We know Willie (James Willie) died in Biloxi, MS (Harrison Co.)and is buried as James W Pitts in Beech Cemetery in Ovett, MS. Homer died in Monticello, MS (Lawrence Co.) and is buried there in New Hope Cemetary. At what point they moved there were are not sure.

In 1940, the last we know of Mary, Manuel has died and Mary has moved in with her daughter, Alice. They are living in the same location. I have checked with the genealogy department at the Jones County Library. They have death records through 1943 and neither Mary nor Alice died before 1944. We plan to go to vital statistics in Jackson, MS sometime in the future in hopes of finding either Mary or Alice’s death certificates, in hopes of finding a fathers name for either. This would help us tremendously in locating our Mary prior to 1900. We have met with one of Alice's granddaughters, who was born in 1953 and she said that both were dead when she was born. We have John W Creel's obituary; He died in 1956 and neither Alice nor Mary are mentioned, only his children. We have been to Alice's grave to look for a death date but her headstone has no dates, only her name. We have not been able to find Mary's grave. We believe she is in Lancaster Cemetery in Ovett, MS where Alice is buried, but her grave is unmarked. We know she is buried in Ovett, and have walked every other graveyard there, so whereever she is, there is no headstone.